Midnight Meetings
by fan-nerd
Summary: 1930s Cops and Robbers AU. Detective Edgeworth finds a lead to the smuggler who caused Wright to disappear the year before. Catching the smuggler only leads to a whole new world of troubles for him, and chasing Wright, or rather, finding him, becomes almost the least of his worries. P/E.
1. I: Chapter I

**A/N**: Hahah hah oh man I was just in California, and it was absolutely gorgeous. Back to writing, I suppose. There is a prequel to this story called _**Intrusions**._ Updates irregularly. Contains characters from all games except Dual Destinies/GS5 and Investigations 2/GK2. Enjoy!

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_December 18, 1931. **Los Angeles**, California_.

He reads the papers backwards and forwards, scanning all of the headlines and furrowing his brow like this will make all of the difference in the world. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knows that this endeavor is fruitless, but still, somehow, he doesn't exactly care. It's more than something to do, for him. It's a reminder of all those carefully guarded smiles, and secretive, dark-blue glances. At work, he does not daydream of some of the, ahem, _finer_ details of their intimacies, and focuses instead on the most tangible – a smuggler, foreign-born, he believes, if the photographs are anything to go by. Actually, right now the man just looks like some creature out of the depths of a fantasy novel by the likes of Shelley or Stoker. For the past year, he's been working all this time not necessarily to find _this_ man, but it's a start. As it turns out, this won't be his first time in cuffs, and, given his personal circumstances, it's difficult to say it will be his last. Miles Edgeworth believes he deserves to be locked up more than half of the riff-raff they've taken off of the street for bar brawls and petty family disputes. An assassin, a smuggler, a drug-trader, and an alcoholic – de Killer is hardly noteworthy in anyone's book as a gentleman, and yet he parades as one just as proudly as any politician might. It turns bile in the policeman's stomach.

"Corner that exit. Something tells me that the likelihood of his casual slip from this establishment will occur here." His instincts are so rarely wrong. Gumshoe gulps, and fumbles to order the others to 'gather round and prepare themselves for a fight'. Miles thinks that this will hardly be necessary. De Killer is no small fry, but he knows when the numbers are against him. After all, he works alone, and he works in the shadows, hoping to avoid just this sort of thing.

As if spoken into appearance, the man with stitches running down his face has a young girl, probably intoxicated, and more than likely drugged beyond coherence, hanging off of his arm, smiling and speaking to her as if nothing is out of the norm. Still, Miles aims his pistol steadily at his temple, crouching to steady his aim. "Hello, sir," His voice is stronger than he feels, and for that he is grateful. "Let go of the girl, put your hands up in the air, and get down on the ground."

"An awfully tall order, gentlemen," He muses softly, smiling expectantly, but obeys. After all, a face full of no less than twenty revolvers in ones' face hardly leaves room for rebellion. The girl is handed off to the paramedics as quickly as possible, hoping to flush her out, however painfully, to get her to testify against him quickly, while the crime is fresh. The fact that the nurse in the ambulance assures her that she will live many more days if she helps the law and not her captor, she finally babbles and sobs, offering to help in any way she can. Miles is unsure how well that nurse's words will hold against such a highly trained killer, but he knows that right now, he has other things to take care of. Now, the law has given him more than enough permission to take care of his business.

"Make sure he is locked up in solitary, somewhere very secure. We'll have words in the morning, Mister de Killer," Edgeworth solemnly barks instructions at the policemen underneath him, nods at their soon-to-be inmate, and presses his fingertips to the bridge of his nose, hoping it will ease his headache.

It does not.

Somehow, he feels like he owes a debt to a man that lied to him for a year, and yet loved him for a year, and left him with a trail of crumbs he was now forced to follow and decipher, bit by bit. It had taken him a large part of this year just to find out exactly whom the head of this smuggling operation was, especially because he did not always seem to be in L.A., and more especially because he'd harmed both the girl who had claimed to know him so long ago, and his lying lover. This, more than anything, clouded his judgment, making him prone to rush to conclusions at first, but once the letter's words, and the nearly poisonous mental imagery, had cleared, everything seemed to both make sense to him and fall into place. Everything except information about one Phoenix Wright, also known as "The Enthralling Alicio", and his mysterious companion, the lovely, but young Maya Fey. It seemed that, although he'd even seen him perform with a particular troupe, even they knew nothing of him, beyond that he called himself Nick, or Travis (for reasons he did not at all fathom), and he did not speak much, outside of brief questions backstage between shows, and the lines he rehearsed and recited so well. At first he'd snorted at that information – Wright was not, and never had been, quiet. It was humorous to think that his co-workers dreamt him to be so, but it was a farce, just like all the rest of his behaviors, Miles assumed.

Somewhere inside himself, he knows that he should hate Wright – hate him with everything he has, desire nothing more than to see him behind bars. And that part of him, it does eat at him guiltily, and he _does_ want to see to his capture – _personally_. Still, a very different part of him remembers promises; _what a fool I am._ He'd promised to love him after reading that letter, and even without having made such a stupid promise, he probably would have gone on loving that informal, criminal man, anyways. He spent many, many nights hoping that no one else in the state of California had caught a glimpse of him, hoping other officers had failed more thoroughly to catch the scent of the underground man than he had. More often than not, he worried himself sick, hoping that he was alive.

And this year, as Christmas approached, Miles Edgeworth felt particularly merry. His efforts in this past year had not been in vain, and he took great pleasure in knowing that he would finally know and threaten a man that had once threatened the life of his lover. Shaking his head, forgetting Phoenix for a moment, he asked to be left alone by Gumshoe, and strode into the interrogation room, dark slacks swooshing with his person as he shut the door behind him, and sat, ramrod straight in the chair across from the criminal. "My name is Miles Edgeworth. Do you prefer to be addressed as Shelley or Killer?"

The man across the table smiled pleasantly, as though he'd been invited for dinner, and had been asked whether he preferred the broccoli casserole or the pasta salad. "Frankly, Inspector, I prefer not to be addressed at all, unless you desire my services."

He couldn't help the sarcastic smile that found its way to his lips with his retort. "That most certainly will not be case, I assure you." Crossing his legs in his chair, and deigning to relax, he shuffled through some of the papers he'd brought in with him for a moment. "Assassination…certainly, we do not catch men of your caliber every day. Suspected of the involvement of at least three politicians that we know of, two doctors, and one actor, although the last of the list is the one with whom _I_ am primarily concerned." It was hard not to rush things, not when he was getting so close. Keeping one of his hands carefully curled in his lap once he put the sheaf of papers down, he tried very hard to keep thoughts from the previous year's parting out of his mind – blood, God, he had to be alright, even if he never heard rumors of Alicio any more, he was too stubborn to die – and focused instead on make his glare harder than ever. "Not your typical target, I would have to assume."

"I do what I am paid to do, sir," de Killer smiled pleasantly, seeming for all the world the perfect little prisoner. It made Edgeworth's stomach turn sourly. "My clients, you see, they meet with me, present a description, and perhaps even a sketch, or a photograph. Then, they pay me half of my fee up front, I do what I am paid to do, and I carry out my instructions. Admittedly, my job that time was something of a failure, but not because he is not dead – rather, it is because I was to injure him somewhere else, and my shot was three millimeters off-mark." Folding his hands after gingerly picking at the stitches in his face, he smiled again. "Friend of yours?"

"We were acquainted, yes," The past tense felt like lead on his tongue, but he hadn't seen him over twelve months now, so it seemed fair. "Were you?"

When his lips curled up this time, it was not his pleased, gentlemanly façade that greeted the inspector; no, this was the bitter smile of a man who had lost his money gambling. "We had the great misfortune of crossing paths a handful of times." He shouldn't have, but Miles had to stifle a laugh, feeling mirthful at thoughts of Wright's sly methods of playing the fool, acting nice, and having someone ruin some of the assassin's _'jobs'_, or perhaps just remove him of clients.

"Some sore history over kidnappings? Or, perhaps, your more notorious work, killing?" Bitterness was heavy in his words, and he knew that his tone was less likely to garner information from this particular man than congeniality, but he didn't care about how crass he was being. Getting an emotional rise out of him was his current goal, after all. If he didn't like Phoenix for some reason, if would perhaps lend him a new trail by which to find the elusive man, and at least permit the both of them grounds which they could share information on.

"Oh, much more than simple _interruptions_, mister – ah, Edgeworth, was it?" His smile was fading, and fast. The loathing in his eyes was more than a simple disagreement in policies – he had a feeling that this man had tried to kill Wright before, and not entirely under contract. "He nearly ruined my standings, both with my current employer, and the one previous, all because of a _girl_. Friend of his, he'd probably say." Miles had an inkling of an idea to whom he may have been referring. "If he weren't so _infuriatingly_ self-righteous, I believe I may not have escaped with my life, so perhaps I should be grateful in that way, but I, assuredly, am not in the least _thankful_ for what he's done for me, sir."

Miles resisted the urge to smile. "You may be at your road's end today. Evidence to prove your ties to your murders is being fervently researched, and your days in aiding smuggling operations are most certainly over. Still, you do not seem terribly…_afflicted_ to hear this news."

De Killer smiled pleasantly again, sufficiently distracted from thoughts of Phoenix. "My current employer is, how do you say…a bit of a lunatic, if I may. In fact, I would be perfectly willing to aide your endeavors to bring Engarde to institution. My sole connection to him was reliant on funds – he is _quite_ the wealthy man, you see. The times are difficult."

The policeman nodded, a little bewildered at how quickly he'd offered to throw his loyalty aside, but it seemed that the reason behind that was too deep to encroach upon for what little time he had to speak to him alone. "It would be most appreciated. Now then, our time is up. Do treat the other men with respect, although they are daft."

"Understood," mused de Killer, and Miles stood, gathering his papers, before striding out of the interrogation room. His head was a flurry – _caught up with a man in smuggling_ – the letter's words, perhaps out of order, swam in his mind. What did they know about Matt Engarde? He was rich, slimy, came from old money, and was so disgustingly civil and pleasant that his peers often stated that they wished to punch him in the face. Some said he ought to be making more pictures, selling his smile, instead of dedicating most of his life to business, but keeping his family's fortune was probably a more enticing offer. Still, it hadn't stopped him from doing work downtown for a few extra dollars. This, however, would stop both of his careers cold in their tracks. Edgeworth shuddered to think about the repercussions, but that wasn't his problem.

What _was_ his problem was how bringing him down would affect things. For now, he had to keep researching. He went back to his office at a casual pace, finished sorting some documents he'd meant to get to ages ago, and then saved that last hour there for what it was usually reserved for – pulling out the dossiers for _Maya Fey_ and _Phoenix Wright_, and expanding them with notes.

Within, there was information he'd been gathering and jotting down in private for the past year.

_Phoenix Wright – Age 24. Male. Approximate height 5'7"._ Within his file lay many things that the man would not share with anyone else, including, primarily, his alias. _Alicio_. With that knowledge, a hefty portion of this file detailed each case with which he knew Alicio had left a card behind, taunting them. He was unclear as to whether there had actually been crimes or not – no one remembered whether anything had actually been stolen. Still, his last venture, when he'd dropped all those valuables in the jewelry shop to throw up a red flag for Miles to see, was shining softly on the paper. Thumbing through all of those with nary a second glance, he went to his note list.

_Known to have connections to Hollywood. Speak to Adrian Andrews_ – this note was crossed out, he'd already visited the woman, and she had very little to say, save that she _did_ know him, but knew very little other than his name. He distinctly smelled a lie, and tried taking her for dinner, coffee, or anything he thought might have suited her fancy aside from a party, but she was unyielding. Once, she'd wrongly accused him of flirting with her, and he stammered his way through an apology for this misconception, and he decided, shortly after they parted that afternoon, that speaking to her further was useless and would only lead to further delusions, on her part. She'd seemed to be teasing him, but on top of not being very good at reading jokes, he simply didn't feel like being pressed, instead of failing to press her.

_Father was involved in underground, possibly money laundering, definitely cover-ups. _The money laundering had since been proven, thanks to a few connections of his own men that had been a part of infiltrating the ranks of those old mobsters _years_ ago. It was beyond rumor that Mr. Wright was dead, so any chance of finding him and asking him anything was out of the question. No one knew where Mrs. Wright was, but just when he was pondering chasing this trail again, the office phone rang. It startled him, and he frowned down at his watch – _Six p.m.? It ought to be shift change for the officers on duty, and everyone in the office ought to be gone._ With that being the case, he figured someone on duty was perhaps expecting a call. They should have had a different extension, but it was not so strange for people to call up here by accident.

He pushed himself from the desk and hurried to answer the phone and remain even-toned. "Hello, Los Angeles Police Investigators and Detectives' Offices. This is Miles Edgeworth speaking."

"Do not be short when you are answering the phone," The voice on the other line, in impeccable English intonation, but unshakably German inflection, made him stand up straight. "Have you no manners?"

"Excuse me, sir. I was not expecting a telephone call from you at my office, let alone so late." It felt like an excuse, and he knew it, already expecting a tongue-lashing for his endeavors.

"Enough useless chatter, Miles. Franziska tells me you have news to report. You did not communicate such a thing with me, so I refuse to believe anything other than what you tell me, _truthfully_, and I shall know when you are lying. Also, do not mumble, as you are prone to. It is already difficult to understand you through the wires."

His grandfather, Manfred von Karma, his mother's stern-faced, stubborn, wily father demanded respect, and garnered it in return. He was more forceful on his grandchildren than he had been with his daughter, particularly because his wife had died sometime after she had left home to travel abroad. According to old family friends, he'd always been a bitter old man, but had only become more intolerable after that fact. His father did not like him, but he allowed Manfred his time to visit with Franziska and Miles. The only thing Miles regretted at the moment was that he'd been comfortable enough to tell her about his promotion coming up soon, forgetting how ridiculously close the two of _them_ were.

Well, it was mostly a fear-and-conquer-type of relationship, where they were both scared of each other for different reasons, and shared ideas of how they would work their way through the system, via Franziska, who was rising in ranks more than most women had at her place of employment. This was, no doubt, thanks to Manfred's influence, and her own indestructible façade. Miles shook his head, unsure of whether he was proud of his elder sibling, or frightened for her, when the time came that it all became too much for her to handle.

"Yes, sir. It appears that I will become the Chief of Police, and Head of the Los Angeles Police Department in the following year."

"What are your plans?" He hated that question. Miles would not fit neatly into his plots, like Franziska. Actually, his sister, if their last conversation was any indication, was up to something that would turn things squarely on their head. Her younger brother almost wished that he could be in New York to see their grandfather when her plots began coming into fruition.

"To make the most of my position, decrease the criminality rates, and find the most elusive criminal we know of on the West Coast," Okay, maybe the last bit had been a tad melodramatic, but he didn't care.

"Do not disappoint me," His grandfather promptly hung up, leaving Miles feeling exhausted. When he came back to his office, a familiar face startled him.

"What are these?" Kay Farraday, the daughter of another fervent officer in the precinct, who was positively in _love _with irritating him, in an almost lovable way, was smiling at him with one of his dossiers in hand. "Phoenix Wright? Maya Fey? Never heard of them before, mister Edgeworth!"

"Hopefully things will stay that way, Kay," He snatched the files from her grubby hands, and was met with a playful pout. "I already know it's useless by the way you are unable to restrain yourself from smiling to tell you not to go through my files, but may I at least have your word that you will speak to no one else about these two, in particular?"

She looked taken aback to be asked such a large favor of the typically standoffish man, who refused to play along when she said she would be his assistant, and would become an officer worthy of being his partner in the future. He felt a pang of disappoint to let her know he would no longer be a Chief Detective, but things would change with time. When they'd first met, she wanted to be a thief, heaven forbid. "Well, when you ask me so nicely, how could I refuse? At least tell me who they are, mister Edgeworth."

With a sigh, he took a seat across from her, as she was seated in his chair. "Old acquaintances." It had taken him no time at all to link Mia Fey to Maya Fey, once he'd had time to sit back and think of their history – they had been Phoenix's neighbors in the past, and their families were close. Closer than he'd ever known, back then. "I am afraid I spend just as much time worrying about points beyond that fact as you are now, Kay."

"They were both pretty good looking! But twenty-four and seventeen is a big age gap! Are they siblings?" He eyed her. "Okay, they had different last names, and different eyes, and faces, but it's not that crazy. Going out?"

Edgeworth's scowl deepened and his brow furrowed. His throat constricted, making his tone harsher than he'd intended. "No."

"Geez, touchy, I get it." She was nearly Maya's age – fifteen – but being near her felt very much like being with a much less snappy Franziska, if his own age and his sister's had been swapped. He shuddered to think of her in her teenage years, his memory of the times hazy at best, smiling kindly there and flipping through his dossiers. It was practically horrific. "Secret's safe with me. Good luck on finding more out! Looks like you were just flipped to _rumors_ _about alcohol brewing probably false_ – your old friend is a mobster?"

"No!" This denial was even more snappish than the last, and when Kay recoiled he felt bad, so he coughed and righted himself. "It is…messy, and complicated. I do not know what to call him, at best of times. There is no doubt that his dealings are not precisely legal, so perhaps you are on to something, in that respect."

Things are silent for so long that he has to cough to break the tension, so she smiles and stands up. "Wow, sounds hard…your friend and you are on opposite sides. How will you act when you finally catch him?"

It's something he's thought about a hundred times, at least. "I do not know." This is the same conclusion he's come to every time. "I will probably punch him in the face, first." Kay giggled at that, and he found himself unable to stifle a small grin in return. Then, after another serious beat, he keeps smiling, but speaks with more confidence. "Before I deal with Wright, first I must tackle moving my office, and then apprehending a slimy businessman."

"Payne?" Kay teased, and they both chuckled at that. Payne was an older officer who worked security for the building, and neither of them cared for his spitting and sputtering very much.

"Unfortunately, no. Slightly more high profile." He pulled a newspaper clipping from inside of his coat pockets, and handed it to her. "Heard of him before?" It was a picture of the floppy-haired Matt Engarde, which he'd been carrying since he'd picked up a paper on his way from the interrogation room. Another officer had clipped it and given it to him.

"He's in movies, isn't he?" Kay blinked her big, green eyes up at him, and he felt old for some reason.

"He is no outstanding citizen," Miles said, and tucked the photo away yet again. "This office is becoming stuffy, and certainly your father is looking for you."

She rolled her eyes, but complied anyways, leading the way out of the door, and he followed shortly behind. "He's _always_ looking for me, mister Edgeworth. He just doesn't know where to look."

Miles sighed, and locked his door tightly, hoping he'd have more time to pack and organize his thoughts in the morning.

x

_January 2, 1932. Location: ?_

A young man came bustling in with an armful of things, but tucked in one of the paper bags was the evening edition of the news. "You're gonna want to see this, sir," He told an older man, who had been discussing something quietly with a woman just a bit older than him, and two other young ladies.

He sounded exasperated, as though this sort of interruption was an everyday occurrence. "What is it?"

"Look!" A finger jabbed at the headline, and every person in the room looked immediately shocked. The second youngest of the females smiled and shook the older male's arm.

"He really did it," She whispered happily, a grin on her face. "I can't believe it. Do you think this means we can go back to Los Angeles?"

He read the paper and smiled just the same. _**Engarde's On Guard!**__ All About How the Business Tycoon's Smuggling Operation was Uncovered!—More on Page 5._ "Don't get impatient…but yes, it means we'll get to go back soon."

The woman next him looked very smug. "Stop pretending you're not making plans to hop on the next train out of here for a 'visit'."

Phoenix, at least, had the decency to look halfway bashful. "Caught me."

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**_Notes_**:

I _swear_ there will be more information about exactly what Phoenix has been up to in the next chapter. There will also be more romance. It's also pretty easy (I think,) to guess who all the characters with him are.

Bram Stoker is the author of _Dracula_ (1897), and Mary Shelley is the author of _Frankenstein_ (1818)_._

Money laundering was, and continues to be, one of the biggest crimes in the United States, and otherwise. Strides are constantly being taken to make sure bills are not fabricated, and are not made by anyone other than federal companies.

Crime cover-ups – as the name implies, these are lengths taken to make sure crimes continue to go undisturbed by the media, or the police. Usually, people are bribed out of speaking, or killed to stay silent.

That's it for now! Stay tuned for the next chapter. The goal is to have it out next Friday or Saturday, but no promises.


	2. I: Chapter II

A/N: I'm posting this a bit earlier than intended, but I've written two more chapters already, so I'm getting excited and a little impatient. Guest reviews have replies at the end of the chapter, and notes are there too. Enjoy!

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_**Midnight Meetings**_

_I: Chapter II_

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_July 17, 1916.__** Angeles National Park**__, Palmdale, California._

"Shoot," His father told his boy, who had his feet planted firmly, and was glaring at him as though he were just as tall as he was.

"I refuse," said the boy, exhausted already from a day at school, the trip up to the mountains, and the climate change from their hometown. Mr. Wright had been trying to prepare him for this day for ages, and meeting with such defiance was troublesome.

"Why don't you want to shoot, Phoenix?" The man sat next to his son with a sigh, deciding that the violent yelling methods his father had taken with him were only going to result in further contention between himself and the boy.

Blue eyes faltered for a moment before glistening in the midday sun. "I don't like it…the idea of killing things." For a long time, things are quiet between them, and only the sound of the wildlife seemed to break their tense silence. Then, Mr. Wright stood up straight and began speaking, keeping his voice stern, but very even.

"Phoenix…you know what I do, don't you?" Of course he does. He may have been nine years old, but he was not an idiot. There was a secret cavern in their basement that he was not allowed to go near, but often Mr. Fey and Mr. Wright convened there on Wednesday evenings, and the one time he had managed to sneak in there, his mother had scolded him for coming out covered in a very special kind of ink. He'd always known that there were a hundred secrets in his house, but his father had never been particularly shy about letting them know that their money was dirty. Still, he was not a bad man, he insisted, and there was no shame in their fortunes. He might not have understood everything, but he understood that well enough.

"Yes, father." Phoenix wasn't usually so polite, but he figured the current circumstances called for differential measures.

He looked, for his quiet and shivering party of one, like a giant, towering sort of man, with ambiguous allegiances. "Do you know why I do it?"

Blue eyes blinked up, thinking of his smiling father, whom he had caught crying a week before he had arranged this visit to the top of the mountain, where he claimed he would teach his son to shoot – that he'd already put it off too long. He had been nothing but kind, even though he got loud sometimes…and he loved his mother very much, she said so often. So when he scrunched his fists in his trousers and turned his dark blue eyes downwards, he was ashamed when his voice came out so small. "No."

The man, tan and sturdy, turned around, and his eyes were sadder than they had been that day he was crying. "Someone has to protect them."

x

_January 10, 1932. __**Los Angeles**__, California._

Finishing the move into his new office was cumbersome, even with the help of two people that claimed to be his 'friends'. Maggey Byrde was an old acquaintance, to use the term loosely, mostly because their interactions had not been particularly pleasant, but she was indebted to him for saving her life more than once. Not in the dashing, heroic, Hollywood style – no, it was more like saving her from a jail sentence for a couple of petty thieveries in the grocery store he frequented. She was a clerk there, and seemed to get into more trouble than she got out of, but on at least three occasions he'd been present to see her take the fall for criminals he would catch within a week, idiots hardly deserving of more than some fees and warnings not to do it again. The other was Dick Gumshoe, who had been his first assistant upon moving to the west coast, a bumbling, hopelessly loyal man who had leapt to help him move his things, and had, in fact, been the one to ask Maggey to help. Miles Edgeworth felt a bit strange about asking a woman to help him move his things, but they both assured him that she had once been a sturdy stable-hand, and even disregarding that fact was stronger than many men they knew.

Reorganizing his things, however, was an entirely different chore, and he assured the both of them that he could handle things from there. Still, doing that would have to wait – an old man had walked in here, probably referred by someone in the Police Department below the offices. He should have been doing nothing but paperwork and filings, but the need for every good officer on the force to be an active agent kept him out of office more than in, so if someone was meeting him here, it must have been very important.

"May I help you?" He wasn't rude, but he felt a bit worried that his guest might be insulted – he'd hardly had time to furnish well, let alone clean up. "Please, have a seat, mister…?"

"Never you mind about my name," The old man said, his expression hardly changing, but he did take the offered seat. "Someone said they wanted me to tell you what I told them. I thought it was pretty stupid, actually, and I'd like to get going, but I suppose it couldn't hurt."

His heart was racing. Edgeworth knew that he'd told them only to send him people he knew things about particular cases he was working on, and only Gumshoe and one other officer knew that he was looking for people tied to Phoenix Wright and Maya Fey. He thanked his lucky stars that the other Detective hadn't ever formally met his friend-turned-lover, and that he hadn't connected that his obsession with Alicio had only become displaced by his desire to hunt information for those two. "Might I have the name of the man who sent you?"

In response, the old man snorted. "Sent me is too kind to that big brute. More like, he practically threw me towards your office and spat at me to go in." Gumshoe, then. They both had a brief chuckle at how easy to deduce the culprit it had been. "Anyways, what I had to say wasn't all that special – only that I used to live in Pasadena, but that was years ago. I knew this fella – one of those dark, handsome types, only had one kid, but his wife…she was gorgeous."

Immediately, he thought back to memories of his old friend, talking about his father teasing him with a wry smile, and his mother with the lovely teeth and a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose. "It would not have happened to be the Wright family?"

"Yeah! That was them. When I said that to that brute, he shoved me up here faster than I could finish the story. I was supposed to be talking about when and where I got my pistol, because it was stolen from me a few days ago, and when I started talking about Pasadena, I suppose I got a little caught up." Edgeworth felt like he might have shoved him into his office for details too, but kept mum about that. "Rumor had it that the man was into some shady business, but I never saw him kill nothing worse than a deer. Guess what you see isn't always what you get, though."

"Why do you say that?" Miles was forever curious about details on this family, wondering what had made Phoenix turn to a life of crime – _whatever_ that life of crime entailed. Those facts were slippery, and rumors, besides.

"Dunno. He was just…so big in the community, you know. Gave a lot to charities, always giving kids on the streets something to do. Still, you knew he wasn't a man to be messed with." The old man scrunched up his nose, sneezed, and accepted the customary blessing Edgeworth politely bestowed him. "Somebody told me once, little after I left quiet little Pasadena that he was funneling some fake bills to some of the mom-and-pops to keep 'em afloat, but I never said more to the man than good morning, and the usual questions – how are the kids, how's the wife."

There wasn't anything incriminating in that, but Edgeworth was still grateful for this little tidbit. "Well, that is alright. Thank you for your time, sir."

"Glad to help. Good luck finding that gun, boys," He shuffled quickly and got out of the building in a matter of minutes.

This little anecdote still left him with more questions than answers. _But how does the younger Wright figure into all of this?_

x

_November 24, 1926. __**Los Angeles**__, California._

He scanned over the work of the brewery quickly, and hurried out of the basement to meet a familiar face. "Larry," He greeted with a nod, and his friend grinned largely back. "Everything's in working order, I presume?"

"It's all good, of course! I keep things rolling around here!" That was hardly true – there were a dozen ladies that helped worked the stores that kept better track of things than he did, and promptly told Phoenix so, getting grins in response. "I can't thank you 'nough, Nick. I'm doing my best here!"

"Alright, no need to kiss-up, you schmuck," Phoenix slapped his friend heartily on the shoulder, as he finished his way out. "Now get in there and make sure my alcohol is made right, Butz."

"Yes'sir!" The red-haired nuisance clambered in and proceeded to do his 'job', which was mostly to play lookout, and see if everything was in proper working order. Everyone else thought he was a fool (and they weren't deluded about that fact in particular), but they also thought he was an honest enough fellow.

At age nineteen, he'd had a strange adolescence and was beginning the route to an even stranger adulthood. Employing Larry at one of his highly illegal and hugely profitable services in this day and age was only a drop in the barrel compared to many of the other things he'd become involved with in the last six years, at least. He'd taken over the whorehouse from his father three years ago, and the ladies there all loved him, but now he was working on getting more and more of the new girls into show-business and on the stage, if only to keep them from selling their bodies. The older ones laughed and told him that the brothels had become their homes, and they were grateful enough that he was cleaning the streets, and making sure they got a steady income. Beyond that, there was this business with the 'family' – not all of them liked his way of running things, and violence for refusing to comply was a necessary measure. Blood had spilled in front of him; he'd thrown up, and had only become more strong-willed about making sure they changed their primary motive from turf-wars to gambling, alcohol, and vigilante pursuits. It wasn't much better, as far as aggressions and illegality, but it was, for now, keeping people from dying, and a large part of that was thanks to the fact that he and his close 'family' challenged anyone to fight them, personally.

They never lost.

It had, in fact, garnered even more followers in new blood, overtaking the number of old members who left their creed.

As he was on his way to the nearest gambling ring, just a few blocks from the brewery, he was stopped suddenly by the witnessing of a crime. He yelled loudly to disturb the attacker, and reached in his pocket for a knife. The man yelled back at him, about to pull the trigger, but he threw the thin, air-resistant styled blade right for the hand holding the pistol, and ran to curtail his screaming. Hurrying to kick him up the groin, and hit his solar plexus, he rushed to throw the man on his back, and urged the man on the ground with a baby in his arms to _move_. To his surprise, the man was already bleeding, but was smiling, and followed him, albeit slowly.

Phoenix went to a phone booth, used all his willpower not to panic and huff, and called for Mia, who he hoped was still in the area, probably keeping an eye on the brothel, as it was nearing midnight. She agreed to help get rid of this creep via anonymous tip for the police office once they'd bandaged and stitched up his knife wound crudely. For now, though, he had this man to deal with. "I want to help you get to a hospital, mister. I just…"

"You can't…" He breathed. "I can't go, and you can't either." Those words alone told the teenager everything he needed to know. "Look…I know you, kid. Know your father, too. Wright's a good man. You…you have to take care of my daughter."

His throat runs dry, but this isn't the first request he's been handed. "I…I couldn't."

"You _have_ to. My boy, too. He's…he's 'round the corner, at the candy shop. Oughta be 'round in a sec…I gotta go." The baby, who had been there during a shooting, was surprisingly quiet. Absently, both the dying man and his audience of one wondered if she had cried herself to an exhausted sleep. "Trucy…Apollo…they need to know…killing people gets you killed. You'll teach them that, won't you…Wright?"

Swallowing, feeling awfully out of place, he tried not to cry, feeling like he was in that forest as a nine year old with his father all over again. "Yeah…yeah, I will." He took the baby, who was wrapped in a shawl that had gotten some of her father's blood on it, and shakily hurried to the candy store, bumping into a kid with unruly brown hair on his way, and hoped against all hope that this was the kid, if only so he could keep them from knowing about this, and vomit in the privacy of his own backyard. "Um, are you, uh, Apollo?"

"Yeah?" The kid had a bandage on his nose and impossibly big eyes, and Phoenix's own eyes were clouding up. He didn't care about his stupid protests as he clasped his arm shakily, and tugged him away, Trucy carefully balanced in his arms.

"We have to go." He told him to be quiet, just for a minute, and swallowed his bile, hoping Mia would get there just a little bit faster.

For just a moment, as he walked the streets quietly with a child on each arm, he couldn't help the bitter amusement he found in the moment_. Happy Thanksgiving._

x

_January 13, 1932. __**Los Angeles**__, California._

Friday the thirteenth was frighteningly quiet for him as he walked into his apartment. Sighing, he tossed his briefcase to the side, and wanted nothing more than a long bath. Since hearing that small tidbit about the deceased Mr. Wright a few days ago, he'd only begun to spin more conjectures about his old lover, and none of them were particularly positive. Still, on nights like tonight, when he'd been told no more than seven times to be cautious, to carry salt and sprinkle it outside of his door, and pondered upon the lunacy of the men and women in the community, he couldn't help missing the little bit of sarcastic sanity he'd once shared with the younger, living Wright.

"_You need to loosen up,"_ Phoenix had told him this very often during their nights together, although the context had sometimes been in regards to his stern attitude, and other times had been in reference to something quite different. Instead of blissful reminiscence, he wanted answers. Was Phoenix really a money launderer? Or worse, had he been lying in his letter, about not being a murderer? The longer they were separated, the worse Edgeworth's imaginations became.

Maya Fey. Judging by her urgency that night over a year ago, she worked closely with him. _A partner in crime, then._ But there had to be others. If his current intel was to be trusted, the Wright 'Family Business' was more like a small force, going by numbers alone. They'd been out of Los Angeles for a time, but there was no telling whether or not _all_ of them had gone. Perhaps Andrews could have afforded him some answers, but he wasn't interested in fighting for futility's sake, again.

He wondered if Phoenix had kept the company of more than himself – maybe with the elder Fey woman, or maybe, since they'd been separated, even another man. It had to be difficult and lonely, evading the law like he did. These thoughts made him surly, so he brewed a pot of tea and turned to the sports section of the papers instead. A noise startled him but he shook his head and forgot that for a moment. It was probably just something falling off of a shelf in the bathroom.

When he stood, turned the corner, just to check, and crashed into something suspiciously familiar to a body, he kept his voice stronger than he felt and said, "Put your hands up and _don't touch anything_," but as he finished and turned around to face his intruder, he was stopped of breath and words.

"Sorry." _Stupid. Idiot. Criminal._ He wanted to call him all of those things, but was still a bit mute. "You know, the whole dodging the cops, laying low thing meant I couldn't exactly come up to the front door of the Head of the Los Angeles Detectives' home."

_Of course you couldn't, you right bastard,_ he thought, but instead of expressing these ideas, he punched him squarely in the gut, dusted his hands off, and said, "If you broke my windows, I will personally ensure that your sentence is for life."

Wincing, rubbing his abdomen, and wheezing for air, the other man managed to respond quickly, albeit with a rasp. "Jesus, thanks for the warning. I didn't break _anything_ – well, okay, maybe the lock's a little off its' hinges, but I can fix that." They both breathed like they were catching their breaths, and after an awkward pause fell between them. "Hello, by the way."

Miles pinched the bridge of his nose. "You broke into my house in the middle of the night, after disappearing for a year. Pardon me for not being my most cordial."

"You forgot the part where you found out I was a criminal," Phoenix pointed out with a guiled grin, earning a scowl.

"Thus earning yet another condemnation on your record," Edgeworth dryly commented back. "Why are you here?"

A sheepish smile spread on his cheeks. "Would you believe me if I said it was a long story?" Looking at his ragged apparel, knowing that the last time they'd met, he'd been bleeding, and firmly interested in why his criminal pursuits had gone so long unnoticed, the silver-haired young man had to keep himself from nodding earnestly.

He sighed and held himself back through sheer willpower alone. "Do you still take coffee with cream?"

Blue eyes lit up as he pushed himself off of the floor, and his smile told him all he needed to know, following Miles back to the kitchen.

* * *

Phew. What a doozy. Reply time!

_Toilet (Guest)_ – I was in San Diego! The weather is absolutely gorgeous, goodness. The fact that this reminds you of Gatsby absolutely thrills me! All your questions about the fic will be answered soon! (I hope, ha, ha, ha.)

_knanners_ – The boys' interactions and romance is _so_ fun to write and imagine; I'm glad this was one of the few AU's you've decided to read! This segment delivers the reaction scene – hope it didn't disappoint. ;)

**Notes:**

1) Angeles National Park is in Palmdale, California, and the drive there from Pasadena is a struggle in the best conditions. You can't go in a straight line, because it's all mountains, but bicycling takes at least four or five hours. Phoenix and his father would have had to drive at least twenty miles to park, and then either walked or biked to the hunting grounds. He's reasonably exhausted.

2) Women were allowed on the police force in the early 1900s, but they were hardly respected, were forced to be on their own special units, and made up only 2% of the police population in _1970_. Maggey isn't an officer in this because I thought it would make more sense for her to work other jobs.

3) Brewing beers, wines, and whiskeys is a very serious business. Also, the prohibition was in place from 1920 to 1933, so in 1926, underground brewing was a huge deal, albeit illegal stance. Gin Mills (slang for places where liquor was sold) and Speakeasies were also well-known "secrets". It takes a lot of steps, but breweries in particular take up a lot of space.

4) Brothels were fairly popular, as well as places for peep-shows in the 20s and 30s. Gambling was and still is illegal in private locations. Casinos are where it is legal, but it's definitely practiced many more places than just casinos.

New chapter in a few days, hopefully!


	3. I: Chapter III

A/N: I'm going to be busy for the next four days, so I figured, better an early upload than a late one. Extensive notes at the end, including responses to guest reviews. Thanks again to everyone who's expressed interest in _Intrusions _and _Midnight Meetings_!

* * *

_**Midnight Meetings**_

_I: Chapter III_

* * *

_October 31_, _1930. __**Los Angeles**__, California._

He came home to a quiet apartment, and sighed, toeing off his shoes and wishing absently that Miles would stop being so stubborn and would stay over more frequently. The other man was terribly embarrassed about their whole affair – probably more embarrassed because of the way he so often teased him, more than anything else – but refusing to stay over was more than likely attributed to his nature. Even as a child, he'd always known his friend to stomp his feet when he was forced to do what he didn't like to, and beyond that, he'd never particularly liked feeling indebted to others. If he had leant his classmate a pencil, chances were that he would buy him a brand new pack, and force him to never speak of such an incident of failure ever again. The memories made Phoenix smile, and his chest panged with nervous tension.

A rap at his door startled him, as Miles had told him time and time again that he would _not_ come on Halloween – it left a bad taste in his mouth. This being the case, and the fact that he'd already been dangerously on edge anyways, the feeling that something bad was going to happen this evening left his nerves more than frayed, and not knowing who was coming to abode so late at night forced his brows to draw and his fists to clench.

"Who is it?" He called, kicking his toe on the floor and coaxing a penknife out of his sheath beneath his soles.

"Evening telegram, sir. Wasn't told much, only that you needed a message in a hurry." He kicked his heel back against the flooring, and walked to the door, still wary. Parting the port and etching the messenger's face into his mind, just in case there was some reason for them to fight, or run across each other again, he smiled and pretended to be cordial. "Ahem," The thin rail of man held himself together by a thread, and presented the message with a few falters his recipient easily excused. "Problem, stop. Little M knows about, quote, him, end quote, stop. Respond A-S-A-P, stop."

_Shit_, Phoenix thought, blue eyes clouded. _Maya._ "I've got twenty dollars to your name if you'll send a message back right now."

He blushed and humbled himself, stumbling at the thought of _holding_ so much money right then. It was probably more of a lump sum than he earned in a month. "Oh no, sir, I couldn't ask so much, I'm only doing my job."

"It's _really_ important," Phoenix fumbled through his wallet for the bill, and shoved the crisp note into his hands before he could further protest. "You ready?"

"Of-of course, sir!" He squeaked a bit, and straightened himself so his back was almost a perfect line.

"Give me three days, stop." _Have to say goodbye to Miles. Have to get everything ready to move. Gotta buy a train ticket. Liquidate assets._ "Big M knows what to do, stop. Be careful, stop. If need be, stay with A, and _do not leave_ safe-chambers, stop. Got all that?"

The messenger repeated his words exactly, with the same inflections, and nodded fervently. The originator of the message who had given him a hefty tip and payment for his services then rattled off a recipient for his return telegram, and he scampered down the streets a happier man than he'd been on the doorstep. Phoenix couldn't help the wry smile that crossed his face, but then he was filled with a grim determination.

It was easy to tell what had happened. In his dealings with de Killer, he'd somehow managed to piss him off well enough, and in Maya's aide in bringing both him and his smuggling, two-faced, good-for-nothing boss to justice, she'd been taken as leverage. He could only hope they could continue to hold her prisoner over his head, and not kill her as a form of revenge. Shelley was no saint, but he was at least known for his thief's honor. Engarde, on the other hand, was not one to take chances.

He found himself quite unable to stop his trembling, but he had to. It was his fault – he'd gone too far, sending someone to funnel funds from Engarde in secret into an orphanage a few miles away, and once they'd found a connection between their rat and Phoenix Wright, they would, of course, seek quick retribution.

_Maya_, his throat burned. Then, privately, guiltily and selfishly, his eyes watered with a thought. _Oh god…Edgeworth._ He'd have to pretend – _nothing was wrong. Don't let him think anything is wrong. I'm going to have one good memory to leave with town with, in case I…_he couldn't think like that, he had people depending on him. _Just to remember what I'm coming back for._

November 1st, he spent the entirety of the day making calls, and writing letters. He hurried on trolleys and taxis, clearing things out – but then, they'd been ready to change locations at any time, in the even that their jig was up in the face of law enforcement, so there were no surprises there. November 2nd, he spent every vivid, lascivious moment memorizing his lover – _quiet, yet urgent. Hot and flushed and bitter_ – it was a lovely envision. His heart sank more and more with every failed attempt to write.

_I'm sorry_, he'd crossed out more than once. _I love you. I'm so sorry. I wish I could do everything over again, for you_.

Then, more realistically, he remembered the faces of many dying men and women, his father's corpse – Trucy crying in his arms, Apollo's childish fists hitting him in frustration.

"_Someone has to protect them."_

_Sorry I can't stop being a criminal for you, Miles,_ he wanted to write, but did not. It was better than continuing to lie, he supposed. He took most of his three days to write that letter, before hurrying off to figure out what to do next. His house wasn't empty – he was going to have someone take care of that once he was gone.

First, he had to smoke the bastard out. The easiest way, he'd found, to cut smugglers' deals off was to get an inside tip. Luckily enough for him, one of the ladies from his brothel had volunteered, months ago, to keep an eye on things as 'merchandise' for the Engarde family home. Of course, their contact was sparse, but he knew everything he needed to from the woman.

Adrian Andrews. He would never be able to repay her, if he lived a thousand lives. She posed mostly as a bookkeeper for the lazy businessman, and often assured the other models and actors she came into contact with that she wouldn't have survived, let alone made her own life, if she hadn't crooned to Matt about how perfect he was, and gotten the other house staff to keep her regularly 'modest'. She'd been beaten, sexually assaulted – Phoenix wanted nothing more than to take her from his clutches, but she refused vehemently, saying that _now_ was his chance more than ever to bring Engarde to justice.

The next couple of days were spent formulating things with Adrian and Mia, the former having finally been dismissed by her master, much to her self-loathing—they were _so close_—and the latter slapping sense into the both of them by telling them that they had to _think_ properly to firstly save Maya, and they could worry about finishing the bastard off once she was safe. Once they were all safe, really.

Details ran through his head a thousand miles a minute. November 6th would live on in his memory as one of the worst days of his life.

"The first thing we have to do is remove those idiots calling themselves security officers outside of his private lodgings." This part was easy enough – Mia disposed of them herself, Adrian signaled Phoenix when he was due to join her, and they picked his lock with covered faces, even though they knew well who would be waiting for them on the other side.

"The hard part – we've got to distract de Killer. Phoenix, don't pull that face – we'll be fine." Mia broke her arm in disabling de Killer. When he heard details from her later, she'd said that he'd almost slit her throat, and even succeeded in tearing her pantyhose. She sounded awfully casual about the fact that she'd almost died, but then again, it wasn't a very rare occurrence for the two of them. _"My daddy would've been proud of the fight I put up, Phoenix."_ Adrian was dreadfully quiet about the whole affair, which told the man that things regarding the three of them had not been quite so cut and dry, but he'd had his own issues to deal with.

"Then, you've gotta bust in, past the lone security officer in charge of the holding area for the women. Rumor is he sold the last bunch to a wealthy client from Texas last week, so Maya will be the only one we rescue tonight—if we're lucky." There were four other girls, too young for this life, he thought to himself, they must have been ten, all of them, and the shivering, thin, and faintly bleeding Maya. She'd only been gone for a week, Mia had said, but she looked terrible.

He'd choked back vomit and screams, but he'd spent so long trembling with the locks on their holds, individually, that the guard had gotten back up from the brief unconsciousness the intruder had forced upon him by brute force in the form of an iron poker. Slamming told him that he'd been hit back, hard enough for his eyes to cross and his skin to break on his scalp, and Maya's yelling, along with the attacker's own bleary state kept him awake enough to scramble messily out of there.

When all four of them, sans the girls, who were probably lost to the woods or the police by now, made it away from the estate, they decided to split up. "Have to check on something – get on the train!"

"Wait, Phoenix—!" Mia had yelled out for him, but he was already running somewhere. Something told him that, when she'd told him de Killer had gotten away – _no fucking surprise_ – he'd be lying in wait for him somewhere familiar.

Then, Maya had torn away from her sister, not even ten minutes after her fussing and Phoenix's disappearance, her own head wounded and legs weak. "I'll find him. We're not leaving without him!"

"Maya!"

_If he's running, it's got to be to his apartment!_ Maya had the great fortune to run into Miles Edgeworth, who had been surprised and furious, but blissfully lacking murderous intent. He was a cop – she remembered Nick telling her that, once.

Phoenix, on the other hand, _didn't_ run into de Killer.

Not right away.

x

_January 13, 1932. Edgeworth's Abode – __**Los Angeles, **__California._

He sipped at the coffee quietly, and hummed. It was delicious. That was no surprise, of course – Edgeworth had always been finicky about his choices in just about everything; shoes, clothes, food, drink. Although coffee was not his first choice in morning beverage, he was sure to always keep some in his home, because he knew that others might stop by in the evenings and desire a cup of coffee after supper. This particular blend was probably from some country in South America he would expect the drinker to know and acknowledge. "Peruvian?"

A dark eyebrow arched up, and the man in question snorted in grim amusement. "You guessed."

From that response, he smiled back, leaning his elbows on the table he knew was sure would earn him a talking-to. "I guessed _right_."

"Elbows, off." This was like a dance, and he, happily enough, knew all of the steps like a professional. Miles hadn't even turned away from the stove, minding the kettle as he boiled water for his own drink. Although Phoenix was smiling, it was soft, a little strange, and didn't reach his eyes all of the way. Still, he couldn't deny that this was the nicest he'd felt in ages. He wanted to sweep the other man off of his feet and kiss him until he swatted him off and gulped in oxygen, and it hurt so badly that he couldn't. Of course, that was largely his own fault. A few minutes later found Miles joining Phoenix at the small dining table, the old wooden chair groaning with the weight. They sipped at their drinks with the awkwardness of a thousand elephants in the room, and yet a strange, familiar comfort. "Since you do not seem to be speaking, I will speak for you. You are some kind of _imbecile_ if you think I am going to overlook your surprise intrusion, forget what happened in the autumn of nineteen-thirty, and have _tea_ with you, after _you_ promised to tell me why you pulled that foolish disappearing act, and left me with what was _possibly_ the _flimsiest_ lead that any police officer in the state of California has had to go on to catch a business tycoon in a smuggling convention."

_Harsh_, he thought, but his body was traitorous, and even managed a chuckle from the back of his throat that he couldn't consciously repress. "You're right…I'm just taking my time. It's good to see you. You look…" As he sees the bags under his eyes, the pale pallor of his face, and the increased definition of his cheekbones, he guiltily finishes, "Kind of awful, actually."

"Thank you," Edgeworth sourly responded, with scathing cynicism. "Engarde _was_ only formally arrested last week, you know. Beyond that, I was recently promoted, and thusly _required _to change the location of my office."

"Chief? Head?" He asks, but is so distant that the other man realizes it's rhetorical. "I've been gone a long time."

"It has been thirteen months," Miles rattles off with his lip hovering just over the rim of his china.

Phoenix remembers an old meeting, and cannot help retorting lightly, "Not that you've been counting."

"Oh, do be quiet." This, of course, only makes his own smirk all the more obvious, and makes the blue-eyed crook smile all the wider. A comfortable silence settles between them again before Phoenix reclines in his chair, sipping lightly at his steaming coffee with cream, and his legs brush against the policeman's. When Edgeworth puts a hand down, he caresses it like he's afraid that it will disappear, or worse yet, that he will never be able to touch him like that again, that he'll recoil and yell that he didn't care about keeping the promises of a liar, that he'd found someone else. There's a tense, almost adverse reaction from the cop, but for the most part, he lets his hand be grasped until he grasps back, gently. "I _am_ going to arrest you, right after you tell me everything."

Phoenix blinks for a moment before laughing loudly, but he doesn't let go of Edgeworth's hand, even as he's shaking, on the verge of tears. "You don't keep handcuffs at home."

Although he's dreadfully deadpan when he responds, neither of them can deny the sexual undertones in his carefully manicured tone. "You _have_ been gone thirteen months."

x

After they finally got around to sitting in different places – Phoenix was draped over the kitchen chair, which was turned the wrong way, and Edgeworth was sitting a small lounge chair in the adjoined living room. His elbows held the weight of his head, but since he was talking, Miles figured he would let it slide, _just this once._ He sat there, detailing some of his ventures – how Maya's kidnapping had tied him up with de Killer and Engarde, who had been hell-bent on bringing home Phoenix's head on a spike. Beyond that, they had a very special grudge against Mia Fey. Then, he told him about the other people he'd kept in contact with, despite not living with them during the year he'd been seeing Edgeworth. Later, he would tell him that he had only moved into that apartment two weeks before he'd invited him over, needing to stay apart from Trucy and Apollo so they would have their own rooms until they could move somewhere bigger. He'd kind of grown to like it, so Mia and Maya kept a close eye on the two, and he checked in with them at least once a week, in what Apollo liked to call, "not-quite-a-dad, not-quite-an-older-brother, and not-quite-a-scruffy-uncle" sort of way. Trucy claimed that she would marry him one day, but Apollo and Phoenix denied such a thing vehemently.

His crimes…he mentioned them in passing – how he was keeping tabs on things, and how Larry was working for him – but information about specific details, he would not share. "All you need to know is…I've certainly had my share of fights over 'the business'. What you need to know most of all…is about this business regarding de Killer and Engarde. I'd love to say that catching them is the end of the road, but…"

"You know as well I do that one crime is hardly the end of the story." Edgeworth interjected.

"Exactly," Phoenix bequeathed, downing the last of his second cup of coffee. "I'll never be more grateful to you for sniffing those two down."

"But?" Miles heard the implied word and raised the question with a furrowed brow.

Surprisingly serious dark blue eyes met steely gray orbs. "We've got bigger problems than those two on our hands."

x

_November 6, 1930. __**Los Angeles**__, California._

"You could have at least told him goodbye!" Maya was exhausted, but put up a fair fight with him regardless, as he rushed her to the platform where their train would be boarding soon. He was grateful that she'd been smart enough to take her shawl from her shoulders and drew it up like a hood, covering the head wound.

"Don't have time," He grunted back, feeling equally lethargic, but spurned on by adrenaline, if nothing else. "De Killer's looking for us, and if we don't get the hell out of here, the brats and Mia will be crying while we're six feet under."

"Don't worry," A slimy voice rang in his ears, and he tried very hard not to bolt even faster. Still, it wasn't de Killer, so he tried to remain calm.

"Who are you." He breathed out the words. It wasn't a question.

That smile would haunt him, as within his cold fingertips lie a piece of torn fabric, and at his feet was the slumped body of the man they were so afraid was going to hunt them down. "I will tell you, and excuse your trespassing, on one condition."

"Name it. Make it quick," His suit was too pristine, his smile was too white, and he wore spectacles. Even his nails looked well-kept.

"You'll be indebted to me for this favor—forever."

_A murderer in the woods_. It was the one man of another 'family' he'd never wanted to run into, in this lifetime. His father had warned him about them more than a hundred times.

x

_March 5, 1931. Location: ?_

The blind man looked at the two young women and the man standing in front of him. They'd been hiding them in his home for months now, but only then had Phoenix decided to collect them all and tell them the truth of that night. Even Maya had needed clarification, as she had been dreadfully close to unconsciousness throughout the ordeal.

When he finally managed to collect himself, he put his cup down, and coughed.

X

_January 13, 1932. __**Los Angeles**__, California._

A gunshot would have been more relief than this news.

Phoenix's distraught gaze caught his own, and he managed a bitter smile.

_You have __**got**__ to be kidding me._

* * *

I don't even _like_ cliffhangers. Ha, ha, ha. Responses!

-_knanners_: Well, thank you! Hope you enjoyed this chapter too. Trucy and Apollo will be around more as the story carries on – right now it's hard to get them super involved, because they weren't there.

-_Toilet_: I know. My cliffhangers are only getting worse! It's like a writer's disease I can't break away from. They haven't appeared mostly because there were some other important things to cover – but everything will be explained within time! I promise plenty of backstory regarding the kids. My response to your KHR paragraph: Pfft! I only thought about it like fifty times, but alas. Serious tones must be kept. ;)

**Notes:**

1) Telegrams are like _really_, really old-fashioned e-mails, but they were usually received at places like the post-office, and, if needed, be delivered via messenger in person. The 'stops' are periods.


	4. I: Chapter IV

A/N: Ack, this is really late. Sorry, guys! I've been really busy. If I haven't replied to your messages (and I don't have anything in this section's end notes as far as replies are concerned), I whole-heartedly intend to respond, but work and moving have kept me rather preoccupied. Thank you guys for your feedback!

* * *

_**Midnight Meetings**_

_I: Chapter IV_

* * *

_January 6, 1932. __**Location**__: ?_

"If I have told you once, I have told you a million times." The man studied the nails on one of his hands, and readjusted the telephone against his ear with the other, completely ignorant of the whimpers of his prey, and of the blood soaking into the soles of his loafers. "I am not afraid to hop on a plane to set you straight."

"_N-no, that's—it's okay!"_ The inflection of the boy's voice on the phone was soothing—he felt terrible to have to shove yet another gagging article of cloth into the man's mouth underneath the rope he'd tied at his jaw, keeping them all in. _"I'll just—I mean, I will get better!"_

"I did not raise you to be ignorant of the inflections of your tone, Klavier." His brother twisted his heel into the gut of the man that had wronged him. "We will discuss this at length when I am next in California. If I do not hear reports of your behavior improving, I am afraid there will be dire consequences."

He could practically hear the pout. _"Yes, brother."_

"I could hear your accent."

"_Ach!"_ It was a blissful coincidence that his step on his groin had elicited a muffled, shrill scream from the man at the same time as his little brother's outburst. _"I am hanging up. Kleinlich!"_

Shaking his head at the lack of manners his baby brother had displayed, he turned his attention back to his victim. "How very rude. You know I was discussing some very important information with a family member. Interrupting is impolite." The man under his heel was bleeding—had been for some time, really—and his dark eyes were watery with pain and fear. "Now then, someone has said that my family has ties to the underground, and beyond that is trading information overseas, in some manner of spying. Why would they say that, do you think, _Herr White_?" Absently, his accent slipped, and he reprimanded himself aloud. "Ach, all of this is because I am distracted. I was only just telling my brother to mind his accent moments ago." Another crush of his groin, digging deeper, brought tears down his cheeks. "Would you not say so?" Yet another dig. "Ah, that is, if you could say something. I am afraid I am unwilling to loosen your, ah, bridle, if you will. You are far too unruly."

Kristoph Gavin's torturing chambers echoed with the pained, muffled screams of the man he'd already deemed responsible for his latest feelings of failure. It was only right that he be subjected to due punishment.

X

_March 5, 1931. __**Breckenridge**__, Colorado._

It was cold – much colder than they were used to, in Colorado. Phoenix heralded in the shivering Trucy, who was five years old, and her brother, who was ten, underneath the only coat he'd ever owned, a gift from his father that he thought he would never use. Mia and Maya were huddled together, and five of them made up a weird sort of makeshift family that nobody this far in the mountains even questioned. They'd had to take three trains to get there—one for the distance, one for the travel from the city, and the last was a trolley that brought them to the foot of the mountain, which was a freighter and a sleeper, coming through regularly to deliver to pick up goods, and dropped off the rare traveler to their destination.

There were two people that met them there – an old man that lived in the neighborhood, owned a truck large enough to carry them all and their luggage, and didn't mind the cold. He expected it; he lived there, so it was obvious enough. The other was the man they would be staying with. Of course, this had all been in the first week of November – it was still colder than it had any right to be, at an altitude of nearly ten-thousand feet in the middle of March, and Apollo, for all his constant bragging that he had the lungs of water buffalo, and was twice as eager to prove it, had been forced to practice to keep his claim. Up here, it was harder to breathe than it was near the ocean on the west coast. Trucy thought it was all very funny, although she clung to Phoenix more than usual during their stay, and made sure Maya was in her sights at other times. It was strangely timid of her. Part of the reason he didn't find it altogether that strange was because the man they were staying with, Mia's old lover, was eccentric, and, he admitted, sometimes a little bit frightening.

Well, now that they were back together, Maya had insider-info that put a dollar on that 'old' being yesterday's news. They were going out in full swing, she bet, and Trucy, at that point, seemed to find Armando approachable.

Still, the only male old enough to have a true grasp of their situation in full figured that it was time for the adults here to have a private chat. He allowed Maya to join them only because then it was easier to excuse Apollo and Trucy for being too young to join them, and hand them off to the neighbors, who gladly babysat them for one evening. They had no children of their own, and the siblings were well behaved, for the most part. On the occasions they'd looked after the brunettes, who were five years apart, the older one was unruly, but had a strong sense of responsibility, and seemed to inherently know when something was wrong with the younger one. The girl was bright and cheerful – a welcome contrast to the surly and blunt personality of her brother, but she was clever at making others happy, and disguising her own feelings. At times, Apollo took measures to hit her over the head to make her cry, earning a lashing from the old couple, but when Trucy happily bawled her eyes out for Phoenix at the dinner table the following evening, he figured that his aggressions had been worth something.

This evening, Armando drafted up a strong pot of coffee, and offered them all a cup, but Maya declined, while Mia and Phoenix accepted. It was bitter, and, in her words, _disgusting_, but it was exactly what they needed, right now. Of course, both her sister and her old friend graciously added cream to the blend, to soften the edge, just a tad. Silence befell the room, interrupted only by scuffles of chairs and a couple of awkward coughs, as they took a seat and paid Mia very rapt attention. Determined not to let the obvious avoidance of the topic that had been kept for _months_ deter her, she was quick to detail what had happened. "You need to know," She had said, although whether that had been for Phoenix's, Armando's, Maya's, or her own benefit, they would never know.

Most of it – except for the tidbit she'd slipped in when Armando's quiet interjections had become quite annoying, and she'd absently clipped at him that the _one time_ he'd slipped up, he'd managed to save her baby sister's life, and almost end his own in the process, so he was _lucky_ that all he'd lost was his eyesight, considering – he'd heard before. Of course, he remembered the particular bout of trouble, because Mia had never truly stopped grumbling about it, but back then, when they were fumbling teenagers trying to follow in their parents' footsteps, and yet drive on a path completely unpaved for them, it had seemed much more trivial when she had described it to him, versus the dilemma he'd faced at the time. She didn't blame him for not taking her seriously at the time – he'd been in equal, if not worse, danger in a financial, physical, and psychological way. There was a lull in her descriptions that was supposed to be his cue, but he'd gotten so caught up in his own thoughts that he hadn't noticed until Maya elbowed him none-too-softly.

"Well, he went running into the woods looking for de Killer – I followed, but I was too far to really see him. I went to his place," Maya was saying, with brief falters in her words, and he blinked up at her curious stare and pursed lips. "He was gone long enough for me to have a decent conversation with an old friend of his…"

"And I didn't tell you what happened while we were apart for a reason," Phoenix suddenly heaved a large sigh. "I still don't really want to." Mia fixed him with a patented glare, and the air rushed out of his lungs as though it were squeezed through a compressor. "I know! We got together so I could, tonight…it still doesn't mean I want to."

"Was it that bad?" Armando frowned a little, sipping quietly at his coffee, looking more and more like he was going to reach for something decidedly more…alcoholic to process all the information he'd been privy to this evening.

Clenching his fists and turning moody blue eyes up, he felt the words leave his mouth in a nasty tone. "I met with the one person in Los Angeles _nobody_ should have to meet with."

Mia looked surprised – appalled, even. Armando dropped his drink. Maya was confused. "And you _survived_?" His partner, older than him, gaped, putting her drink on a table so she didn't the same thing as her lover.

"Who?! Who is this guy? Why's he such bad news?" Maya's eyes were wild, and her scowl was desperate. Her hands were a flurry of gesticulation. "Why did you guys all get so _quiet?_!"

Sympathetic looks from the older trio were set on her, and they were unsure whether they were blessed or cursed for her naivety.

X

_January 13, 1932. Edgeworth's Apartment – __**Los Angeles**__, California._

"Kristoph Gavin," Miles Edgeworth breathed the name as if saying it loudly would summon the German to his table like a demonic prayer. After piecing together some of what the other man had told him, he cradled his head and let silence fall between them again. "Times like this, I almost wish the prohibition were not the law. Information like this could drive a man to drink."

Phoenix laughed. "I'll put the kettle on. At the very least, another cup of tea will be required. Besides – word on the street is that gangs are getting hard to control, what with all this competition for bootlegging sales on the market. I know somebody betting good money that it'll be off the books by next year."

"Fat chance," The silver-haired policeman snorted. "And wishful thinking."

Dark, pointed locks bounced a little bit as he stretched, stood up, and found things in familiar places – they had met more often at his apartment, but he'd been to Miles' place at least five times, and memorizing the location of his groceries and linens had only taken two visits. Finding the coffee pot, drip flute, and filters was slightly more difficult, but the tea and its' pot were still out on the countertop, and the kettle was still on the stove. After starting the gas, he pulled a match from a book next to the kettle, which he had filled after putting the coffee utensils together, and watched carefully as the pot started to boil. Miles watched him, reminded urgently of their time together. It felt like it had been ages since he'd seen him just quietly do house chores – although he wasn't _quiet_, per se, because he liked to hum and whistle while completing them – but it was, he admitted to no one but himself, nice.

After he decided that watching him watch water boil – figuratively speaking – was a bit too wasteful of whatever little time they had, he hurried to his study, found a file that was with the rest of the G's in necessary information. His folder was so large that it deserved its' own book, really, and it was all full of rumors, half-baked information that no officer could truly use to convict a man, and they all knew it was true. It was positively horrendous. "Kristoph Gavin," He murmured again, fingering through some of the information. "Mafia Head, hundreds of links to potential bank robberies, more than a dozen murders he might be affiliated with, and holds over nearly every other influential underground businessman, and likewise corrupt politician, in the city of Los Angeles. Of course, his connections hardly stop here."

"If they did, it'd be a hell of a lot easier to run away from the asshole," Phoenix muttered back, but it most certainly wasn't meant to be a private thought.

Gray eyes widened and turned to him. "He's got something on you."

Blue eyes flicked his way for a moment before turning back to the whistling kettle. "Nobody meets with Kristoph Gavin unless he's got _something_ on you."

His throat suddenly dries, and his stomach drops. "Please tell me that you have not—"

"_No_," Phoenix asserts, turning off the stove and reaching for more things. He'd ground the coffee while he'd been searching for the file in the study, apparently, and was pouring the grinds into the funnel where he'd already put a filter for the coffee. Once he poured water from the kettle in a circular motion, rather slowly, even, he waited for it to drip in the glass mug below. Then, after he'd finished that process, he looked the tea leaves he thought appropriate in their glass, labeled jars next to the sink, put what he found to be a fair amount of them into a strainer in the teapot, and used the remainder of the kettle's hot water to fill the thing with. "I wouldn't kill anybody and show my face again; most of all to you, Edgeworth."

He called him Edgeworth when he was worried. If his heart weren't beating so fast from all this paranoia, the other man is sure he'd be flustered over his concern. "Well then, what could Gavin possibly use to make you do his bidding?"

"That's the thing," The taller man came to the table with refilled beverages minutes later – another cup of coffee with cream, another brew of a spicy, heady black tea. Edgeworth was wary to taste it, but he'd done rather well, for a tea-brewing amateur. (Okay, that wasn't fair – he _had_ made tea before, but the first few times he'd tried to make it for him in the evenings, it had been awful. Maybe in the year he'd been away he'd gotten better – or, maybe, this had just been a pleasant fluke.) "It isn't what he's making me do right now; it's what I'm _afraid_ he's going to make me do in the near future."

"Why do you say that?" Gavin's got some sort of psychological problem, but he's always had rationale and the craftiness of a hundred foxes, so he can hardly imagine he would have met Wright if they hadn't had business to discuss. _A grudge, perhaps?_ Things didn't seem that bitter between them.

Although his lips were glued to the heat-resistant glass, his eyes were still open and glowering with mixed emotions over at the other man. "He said I would owe him a favor – the favor of a lifetime."

X

_November 6, 1930. Woods – __**Los Angeles, **__California._

It was obvious that de Killer had been knocked rather _brutally_ unconscious, but the man wasn't that large – he couldn't have used his fists alone, could he? His heart raced. "What do you want from me?"

"Phoenix…isn't it?" Behind those spectacles and pristine, obviously tailored clothing, he looked like nothing but the sweetest angel. He wondered how many men and women had been charmed by that smile, that softly tanned skin, and those sharply manicured nails. "Ah yes…another small competitor in the neighborhood. I suppose this mess you've dragged here is following you around as you're chasing down this smuggling. Rather disgusting business, admittedly. Ah, I suppose I shouldn't say that…there is absolutely no telling what one must resort to in dire times."

"Hurry up and tell me what you want, Gavin," Wright held onto his patience with thin threads. "I'm grateful to you – plenty grateful – but I didn't know this was your turf. I need him to be returned, to ease suspicions, and I'll take care of it myself." He didn't want to owe this man any more favors.

"Mm…I suppose we'll call it paying it forward, then," Gavin dusted off his hands – on second glance, he was dusting off his gloves. "Believe me, I will find a way to make you…_useful_ to my cause, when the time comes."

That smile would haunt him, even as he left de Killer in plain sight and alerted a villager that this man belonged to the Engarde estate just up the hill – with a shrouded personage, to ensure he stayed unnoticed. After that, he hurried to finish his business here, carefully taking a longer method to avoid the tall, almost offensively blonde German man, and came to the steps of his home to find Maya and Miles debating the urgency of going and getting medical attention.

He could've kissed them both, but there was no time.

_We have to go!_ His mind and his mouth screamed, desperate to get out of this city and keep his thoughts in order.

X

_March 5, 1931. __**Breckenridge**__, Colorado._

Mia looked the most concerned, and even told Maya to be quiet once Phoenix started talking about exactly what had happened while they were separated. "We have to do something about him. You can't just sit back and wait for him to use you like, like a—"

"Like a pawn?" He laughs bitterly, letting his face fall on the bridge of his fingers. "I know, Mia. I really do. I know better than anybody…but I can't think of a way I'll be able to see him without one or both of coming out dead."

Maya flinched a bit. She knew that their old friend was no violent man, even though he could sometimes be forced to be, for his own safety, or, more likely, the safety of another. "Nick…you're scaring me. Why's this guy got you more spooked than the other family brats?"

There was a long, tense moment where he tried to smile at her, but found that he couldn't. "Maya…for the sake of gaining more territory, that man…he killed a lot of people. He killed some very prominent figures three years ago to assert his worthiness to those who might have doubted him." Tension in the room was tangible, and while Phoenix had seemed livid just moments ago, now he seemed empty. "One of those men…was my father."

X

_January 13, 1932. Edgeworth's Apartment – __**Los Angeles**__, California._

Edgeworth almost spilled his tea over his important documents about Gavin. Phoenix wasn't smiling. "My apologies," He awkwardly hurried to say the placation, but even that would make a bitter smile come to his lips again.

"It's not your fault," Phoenix sloshed the coffee in his cup for the sake of something to do. "I shouldn't have come back." He sighed, stood, and put his cup down. "_I'm_ sorry." When he turned his back and made for the window he'd made his illegal entrance from, his wrist was caught, and there was scalding tea staining the back of one of his favorite gray, white pin-striped vests.

"Sit," Miles commanded. Slightly dumbfounded, Phoenix obeyed and looked up at the stern man, who was pale, and had listened to him for ages, despite the hour at which he'd snuck in, and the manner, besides. "Firstly, as you have stated, it would have been foolish to assume that Gavin could not have found you, regardless of your location. There is no reason he ought to have intimidated you from coming back to your own home." Neither of them mentioned that they were both, in actuality, from Pasadena, and not Los Angeles. "Secondly, this is no more foolish than running around on trains with head wounds and forcing letters onto unsuspecting officers while skipping town." He couldn't stop his laugh at the sheer audacity of this entire situation, and how very seriously Miles had kept his tone and glare throughout his schpiel. "Thirdly, there is now a stain on your vest, and unless you are intending to catch a train to the other side of the country in that state, and, to my knowledge, with no other luggage to name, you will be ridiculed every single time you go to the dining cars, or the restroom." This was getting more hilarious with every note, but he tried to restrain his amusement so as not receive more lecturing from the other man. "Fourthly, and most importantly," He pulled himself to full height, trying to loom over the sitting Phoenix. "I have _not_ released you from tentative custody – or did you _conveniently_ forget that you were under arrest?"

This stopped his urge to laugh, if only for a moment, because he was too bewildered to do anything but blink and gape. Then, suddenly, all his amusement came out in loud, continuous guffaws. "I suppose it may have—_snrrk_—slipped my mind."

Miles could scowl, cross his arms, and huff all he wanted, but there was a blush spreading over his nose. Phoenix reached for one of his hands and rubbed the pale knuckles of man he had missed more and more every day in the chilly mountains of Colorado. "You're not getting out of telling me the rest of this story, Wright," He murmured, but he didn't sound very angry any more.

"I know, Miles," He pulled himself up and pushed their lips together only after they'd pressed noses together for nearly a minute, simply breathing the same air heavily in the same space again, after so long. It was chaste and dry, this kiss, but Phoenix groaned against him anyways.

* * *

Notes:

1)_ Kleinlich_ means stingy/petty/ungenerous in German.

2) Breckenridge, CO is about an hour and a half away from Denver, CO. It's famous for being a popular area for camping, skiing and other snow-sports, and also rafting, kayaking, and other watersports. A fun fact – I've been to most of the places in this story, Breckenridge included. It really is nearly 10,000 feet above sea level. It's sort of dizzying.

3) Coffee and tea—Edgeworth has a gas stove with no automatic ignition; unlike the ones we have now. You start it up the same way, with a dial to open the gas pump, and then you lit it with a match. The actual coffee pot is drip-style – there's a funnel-flute at the top where you would put the filter with the coffee grinds inside, and pour the hot water carefully. Then, just like an automatic, it drips down into your cup. Tea is similar, but you steep it first in a container (like a teapot) before pouring it into your cup.


	5. I: Chapter V

A/N: Okay, so this is the last chapter I have pre-written! I do hope to get the first arc of this fic done within a few months, but between work and school, who the heckie even knows. Thank you guys again for all of your support, and enjoy chapter 5!

* * *

_**Midnight Meetings**_

_I: Chapter V_

* * *

_January 6, 1932. Gavin Household__** – Los Angeles**__, California._

A huffy ten year old clanked the phone back on the hook and pouted as though this expression would force his brother to stop berating him from the solitude of his stuffy library. _Just because he's so much older than me does not give him the right to treat me like an imbecile!_ He thought to himself, in _German_, no less, if for nothing else than the satisfaction of knowing that Kristoph could not tell him off inside his own head. Still…there was no telling what his brother was capable of…what if he really _could_ read minds? He nearly felt his blood stop, and ran to the kitchen to catch the hem of his mother's dress. "Kristoph can't read minds, can he?" It was strange to ask such a thing, he knew, especially since he was nearing eleven years of age, but his blue gaze was determined.

"Of course not," She chuckled a bit, the wrinkles in her cheeks patient, as though she were quite used to this sort of outlandish theory from her younger son. "He is as much normal as you or I, meaning no mind-reading."

Thinking of how overtly pleased his adult brother had been for days now, and how insistent he'd been with him to perfect his English, he hardly viewed him as 'normal'. Something very special must have happened. Klavier pouted again. "_I _think he's picking on me because he's happy. My only logical conclusion for his call this evening is that he read my mind from somewhere else, but was not entirely correct! He must have felt that I was feeling down about not, how to say…" They spoke English at home, despite their accents – his mother's talent with the language was superb, but his father snuck in more _Deutsch_ than English in his conversations. Kristoph was probably the only one of them to truly stick to his word, and his handling was proper, but he had a more atrocious accent than his baby brother did, regardless. He was probably just trying to 'help', but Klavier didn't appreciate it. "Not fitting in. Instead, I am upset about the _ivories_!"

His mother laughed, and ruffled his locks, so deeply golden that it felt wrong – both of her sons had gotten that trait from their father, and even her own brown locks were beginning to dull gray with age. "You are very close to your name. It was chosen well."

"I was born to play!" Klavier beamed up at her, her almost-eleven year old growing like a weed and catching up to her, with his long, tan fingers, and impossibly blue eyes. He and Kristoph may have had a strange, but loving familial relationship, but Kristoph, at the surface was easier to handle – more rational, always thinking ahead, very quiet. It was Klavier, and his loud aspirations, his prodigious skill with the instrument he had been named for, and his unspoken tendency towards being not only wild, but being a leader, made her worried. She'd felt too young when she'd had Kristoph, and now she felt too old, already an old maid with a child that would be a man in the time she blinked. "Kristoph's only concerned with _finances_. How perfectly boring."

Klavier was a light. He was a light because she had already let Kristoph get too deep into the shadows. "You're right," She feigned a laugh, but clutched at her apron out of his line of sight. "Perhaps he'd been more interesting if he could read minds."

A large part of Mrs. Gavin hated herself when her boy smiled back.

X

_January 14, 1932. Police Headquarters – __**Los Angeles**__, California._

"Good morn—" His greeting was promptly ignored by the bustling man in the dark overcoat with a heady glare to his eyes. Scowling a bit, determined to find out what was the matter, he followed his boss down the hallways. "Mister Edgeworth! Everything okay, sir?"

Miles Edgeworth, who looked noticeably more ruffled than his subordinate could ever remember seeing him in the past two years, practically snarled at him. "Gumshoe. If you value this week's salary, you will cease asking questions _immediately_. I am going to my office, and if I am disturbed for any reason this morning, there will be _very dire consequences_."

Gumshoe's blood ran cold, and he straightened himself, trying very hard not yelp. "Sir, yes, sir!" He trotted away like a resigned puppy, upset that the other man was keeping something from him, but certainly not eager to lose wages over his psychological wounds. Usually, the silver-haired man was more amiable on Saturdays…he must have had a bad evening.

On the other side of the office door, his boss groaned, feeling like the evening prior had been anything but 'bad', but he hadn't gotten any sleep, between the languid, disgustingly long bath he had shared with another man in his apartment, where they kept talking about smuggling, alcohol – anything to keep his mouth running, really – until things had gotten a little more…intimate. Phoenix, when he was being taken, was, just as he remembered, so horridly vocal and clinging and _wonderfully hot_ that now, as he hadn't slept in over thirty-six hours, it was hard not to keep deliriously thinking back to how _good_ it had felt.

How he had managed to remain celibate for thirteen months, he would never recall.

_Ugh_, he chided himself silently, moving to get his things in order. _Now is hardly the time to reminisce_. There were three files to sort, a crime scene to visit, and thinking of the man he'd left sleeping on his bed, handcuffed to the post, was detrimental to his psyche. He'd been kind enough to put some food and drink on his nightstand for him to partake in while unable to do more than roll about, and stand, and he'd even left him with a bedpan, should he have to relieve his bladder while he's out.

Some part of him thinks this is stupidly paranoid, but his paranoia has saved him from stranger situations before. Yet another part of him dreads that he will come home to an empty apartment, a scribbled apology written and folded on the sheets, saying that he'd only come for a short time, and his intent to be arrested, _formally,_ was still at odds with Miles's determination to have him behind bars.

_Enough!_ He chides himself, and sets about to pouring over these notes, knowing that he will have to leave to get to the crime scene in two hours. Scrunching up his nose at every stupid detail – _Suspect left gun at crime scene after it was fired, where witness claims to have seen his face, and know how he got that gun. Apparently a hate crime – the injured party is still in the hospital ICU; was the current boyfriend of the suspect's ex-girlfriend._

It was insane that people would _kill_ over such things. Being romantically declined did not give people the power to take a life.

The other two were acts of violence and larceny, and he had them moved to a lower jurisdiction – he didn't feel like having any attachment to those cases. His officers and junior detectives would have to learn how to make it on their own without him – he was stretched thin with figuring out the details behind some old closed cases, several murders, and, most prominently, what on earth this mess Wright had managed to get himself into was. Just as he sighed and gathered a box full of evidence and the folders on the two acts that had been brought to his office, the phone rang. Sighing, he put his things down and reached for it. "Hello, Miles Edgeworth, Chief of Police, speaking." He hardly felt like one.

"Do not be so cross when you are answering the phone, little brother." Franziska's clipped tones chided him, and he felt an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. "I have a very important update for you, as it is of high priority and concern to the both of us."

Whatever his sister was up to, it certainly didn't seem to forebode well. She almost never called, and this particular message held enough weight for him to close his door, lock it and sit back down on his chair. The last he'd heard, she was speaking to several people, trying to make it in the business world and succeeding wondrously, all according to their grandfather's plan. If she was calling, and it wasn't bad news, he would bet five dollars that she was going to gloat.

"I have been looking for a very long time for something. For years, we have both been acutely aware of _Großvater_'s methods and outright dislike of Papa." He felt a bit impatient listening to this drivel. If this was all she had called to tell him, he was disappointed.

"I am aware, Franziska. He is a stern man…he has only told us a thousand times of his life in Germany, of his quest to escape when he felt that things might become dangerous. He sent his daughter years before he could make it, with his wife. You know the story well."

She clicked her tongue, and he could practically hear her smugness. "I am speaking of matters that continue to have repercussions in the present. If you do not remember, I will not bother with the details. The only thing that matters is the conclusion at hand." Vaguely, he felt that there had been a time he was terrified of their grandfather for more than just his tongue-lashings and harsh lessons. Maybe she knew more about that he did. Maybe he had blocked it from his mind. "I have, with Papa's help, managed to tie him to something that very well drag him from retirement, and most assuredly will bring about his rage."

Miles tried not to bang his fist in irritation. She was being deliberately annoying, and it was tiresome. "What _is_ it, Franziska? I do have work to be doing, you know."

"Be patient," crooned the woman, and he groaned softly in response. "I trust that, as you are living in the hills of California, you have heard the latest news, of the smuggling operations of that vile business run by Engarde?"

_Now you are just teasing me._ "I _brought_ in Engarde. Of course I do!" He huffed, feeling very childish, and deciding not to care about that right this very second.

"Then you, of course, know all of the details of his operation, and which business he was partnered with from the moment suspicion arose regarding his backwater deals to the moment he was arrested." Startled, he scowled and felt immediately on edge. Still, he had an idea of what was coming. "To ease the suspense, I suppose I will go ahead and tell you that the business belonged to our grandfather."

"So you think…he was privy to this. No – you think he _instigated _it," Edgeworth felt suddenly both sick and unsurprised. "And you want to expose this."

"You _are_ somewhat intelligent after all, Miles," Franziska hummed. "I plan to do so with the help of an informant who believes that our grandfather was not only tied to Engarde through this, but may perhaps know something of a spy from Germany, seeing as he was one."

"Wait – _what_?!" He was bewildered. It was quite one thing to expose a man's smuggling operation, if their businesses were linked, but he'd never have assumed such a thing. "Grandfather never even speaks German at the house, and he left Germany to _escape_."

"That is what I believe he wanted us to think," Her voice was suddenly very serious, all traces of cynical teasing gone. "I must be going now, Miles. Do _not_ speak of this to anyone, or I shall have your head. I cannot have you ruining my plans." A click signaled that she had hung up the phone.

When Gumshoe, still rather frightened but grimly prepared for a pay-docking, knocked at his door and told him it was time to go, he amazed himself by rushing more quickly out of that office than he thought ever might have.

X

_January 14, 1932. Edgeworth's Apartment – __**Los Angeles**__, California_.

_Sigh_. He'd gotten bored of being tied up after about ten minutes, but the clock on the wall told him that he wouldn't have to wait much longer to get out of his hold. _Ten o'clock couldn't come quickly enough._

Miles, the right prude, hadn't even left a radio on for entertainment.

He fell into a doze for the remaining fifteen minutes to the hour, and roused when he heard a rap at the window. It was broad daylight, but Miles was unfortunate enough to have a place on the first floor with windows that were not terribly hard to pick locks for. For a police officer, he was awfully uncaring for his own safety. It troubled Phoenix in some part of his mind, but he was sure Edgeworth had been at the center of worse situations. The intruder he called out to, and was pleasantly surprised to find that not only had the one person he had told to come arrived, but also that she had brought two others with her. "Trucy, Apollo!"

"Nicky!" The little girl squealed and jumped on him, and he made a noise from the weight of impact, but otherwise smiled right back at her, just as sunnily. Her grumpy older brother even managed to stop scowling for a moment to smile at him, joining her in jumping on the bed. "Wow – you _slept _here?"

"This is his lover's house," Maya teased, and the man rolled his eyes. "Need some help?"

"Yes, thank you." She had the lock of the cuffs picked in under thirty seconds, and he rubbed at his tender wrists.

"I didn't think lovers were s'posed to lock you up like cops," Apollo commented, and Phoenix flicked him on the forehead.

"He _is_ a cop," The older boy said, and both of the kids gasped aloud. They launched a barrage of questions at him, and he plugged his ears and closed his eyes, pretending to tune them out.

Both of the children wanted to know how and why two boys were lovers, but all of Trucy's other questions were about how much money he had to live in a place like this, and whether fuchsia was his favorite color, while Apollo's were about why he was staying with somebody in law enforcement. More of his time was spent writing a little note for Miles before explaining to them what was to happen next.

"I can't stay in Los Angeles too much longer, or somebody will try to use me for something even more dangerous than my Romeo-and-Juliet love story," Phoenix told them like adults, and Maya frowned in the background just as deeply.

"You couldn't stay just one more day?" His heart hurt, and her eyes were full of a longing empathy, knowing just as much as he did how much that couldn't happen.

Distractedly, his eyes caught an old trinket he'd given Miles years ago, and everything hurt all over again, but he managed to force a smile. "No."

"Do we have to go back to Colorado? I don't want to stay with nasty ol' Godot – he smells like old coffee and nasty cigars." The nickname had come from something Phoenix had called him by accident, but the kids had really made it stick. _"Go, Doe! You can do this," _He'd caught the man chanting to a radio during a horse race, and promptly mocked him for the rest of the year. _"Go, Doe! Go, Doe!"_ Phoenix had teased, to his lackadaisical frustration. Trucy thought it was a name, and so, he had let it pass, only by letting her respell it to properly look 'classy', instead of Go-Doe.

"No," He bent down to kiss the girl on the forehead, and hug the boy close, knowing that being kissed would only embarrass him further than he felt like dealing with at the moment. "I want to get as far away from California as possible, short of leaving the country." Catching their hands in his and looking solemnly at Maya, he nodded. "You guys go ahead – I have to write a note and fix that lock. I'll be ten minutes."

"I'm sorry, Nick," She sounded very down. "This is all my fault."

He shook his head, and smiled with feeling this time. "No, it's not."

_It's mine._

His note this time is nothing like the last – this time, it's brief, rushed, and the ink is runny. _Consider me dead, and don't look for me_.

He's already done too much by telling Miles about the truth behind his and de Killer's entangled history, and telling him that he'd had the grave misfortune of running into Kristoph Gavin – he won't make things worse by dragging him down and staying in Los Angeles. He can start up again – his businesses ran just fine here while he was gone, and starting over again in Colorado hadn't been easy, but he was coming into yet another rumored small fortune, with many contacts. If he went to New York…he felt like he'd be betraying Miles's trust yet again – hadn't _he_ been the one to tell him to come to Los Angeles again to find answers? But when he looked down at those two pairs of trusting brown eyes, he knew he didn't have the heart to turn back now.

He looked back at the note with the screwdriver in his hand, and appended, _I'm sorry_.

X

_October, 1929. Location: ?_

Staring down the barrel of a loaded gun was, sorry as he was to say, not an uncommon occurrence. However, the young man holding the gun was not so much an unfamiliar face as he was one he'd never thought would be standing there, preparing to intimidate him and, very possibly, kill him.

"What do you want, Kristoph?" Calling him Mr. Gavin would be strange – he _knew _Mr. Gavin. Although he'd also always known that the man had connections to underworld, his suspicions that he was connected to more than just that were now being confirmed. His _son_ could have only kidnapped him for two reasons – the first was territory. Killing the owner of a fairly sized syndicate for turf was no new news. Still…he felt that a secondary reason – something like the way he'd killed an informant from Germany that had kidnapped two children he knew well a week ago – was probably the reason he was really here.

"I need to know where the children are," Kristoph smiled gently, pulling the safety latch back. "I know you know. They are, how to say, _zietzeugen_ – _witnesses_."

"You will have to kill me, Kristoph Gavin," Mr. Wright answered, smiling confidently. "And search for them yourself. You don't know what they look like, nor do you know their names."

"I _will_ find out," The tall man said, none too happily, dregs of white-blonde hair falling in his face. "However uncooperative you remain. Of course, I had no intentions of killing you right away, but I see that torturing you will be a most futile endeavor. I do not enjoy wasting time, mister Wright."

"Then shoot," His captive said.

Even with a silencer, the shot felt loud, and the second-generation German did not hesitate to have someone come and clean this mess up.

He started formulating a plan for ages…but it was still no secret how things had played out. When rumor on the streets hit that Gavin had killed Wright, his boy had started to go more and more unseen in Pasadena, but continued his business, regardless. It was easier to explain that he'd moved to transfer and gain more funds when he'd moved a year later…it was easier to explain that he'd gotten an apartment on his own because he didn't want to be haunted by the shadow of his father.

Only two young women knew that it had been a well-thought out ploy to distance his connection to Trucy and Apollo, even if it broke his heart, and meant that he only got to see them very rarely, and only under the guise of business deals.

But, it had kept them safe.

Phoenix just had to keep smiling – Mia had told him that.

Until he met Edgeworth, that had been such a hard thing to do.

* * *

Notes:

1) This is super, incredibly late but here is an age list for everyone, starting from the bottom. 5 – Trucy. 10/11 – Apollo, Klavier. 15 – Maya. 23/24 – Edgeworth, Phoenix, Adrian, Larry, Engarde. 30/31 – Franziska, Kristoph. 40s/50s – de Killer, parents (Wright Family, Feys, etc.), 60s – von Karma.

2) Bit of a silly note, but Klavier means _piano_ in German, and Kristoph is a form of Christopher, meaning _bearing/carrying_, or _of Christ_. The irony is fantastic and sort of beautiful, I think. (Also, Kristoph cannot _actually_ read minds. I'm not that awful. Yet.)

3) The German Empire was proclaimed after a series of wars from 1863-1871.


End file.
